For further context on Russia's willingness to negotiate, even after the failure of Minsk 1 and 2, they proposed a European security treaty that was rejected by the US in December '21 which would have satisfied the principal requirements not to intervene in Ukraine.
This analysis of the prequel to the SMO by historian Prof. Geoffrey Roberts may be of interest
First, per the Dissident, you can NEVER go wrong reading Ivan Katchanovski. I've followed him on Shitter for years.
Second, I thought Trump was going to solve this war by now? In reality, as the Dissident has hinted at in a couple of previous posts, Trump's "transactionalism" applies as much to Russia-Ukraine peace talks as to anything else. And Putin, like Xi on tariffs, isn't buying in — because he doesn't have to.
Trump hasn't solved this war in 90 days, let alone his first week. We've seen the same is true on tariffs. And the same will surely remain true on both after Trump's 90-day "pause" on many of his tariffs is done (if it lasts that long).
What makes the Russian operation in Ukraine illegal, article of the UN charter? As if it is illegal there must be a legal argument. Yet the ICC did not charge the Russian president for conducting an illegal war but for evacuating children from a warzone. If the Russian SMO was unjustified what options were available to Russia that they had not already exhausted?
It wasn't illegal. Russia's intervention was done under Article 51 of the UN charter, which grants the right to collective self-defence. Ahead of Russia's intervention, Russia officially recognised the independences of Donetsk and Lugansk (which was entirely a right of Russia to do), and then signed mutual defence pacts with them. Then Ukraine massively ramped-up its shelling of those regions, a bit over a week before Russia's intervention, triggering the mutual defence pacts under which Russia entered the war.
Additionally, it's an international principle that states may not enhance their security at the expense of other states. It's also been argued, including by the US (such as regarding Iraq - but the US lied about a threat in that case), that international law also grants a pre-emptive act of self-defence in the case where there is a clear, looming threat of aggression. The danger of Ukraine joining NATO, a hyper-aggressive, anti-Russia military alliance that has invaded and destroyed country after country, and murdered millions of people in illegal wars of aggression based on lies, would be the gravest violation of the principle of indivisible security, and constitute a case of a clear, looming threat to Russia.
The Dissident's article is mistaken in claiming that Russia's intervention was illegal. The West calls it illegal just because they don't like it. But while people and countries can have their own opinions on the justification for Russia's intervention, it was done lawfully, per international law and the UN charter.
The issue is the whole western strategy is based on emotions that depend on morality and not law to justify arguments. The problem is the world is dominated by ignorance so most people make the mistake of "feeling" rather than taking into account actual legal, logical and reasonable information. The conflict has demonstrated that feelings do not dictate reality and the conflict in the middle east emphasized the hypocrisy that has always existed in the imperialistic colonial Western mindset.
Not just emotions but caricature where "Putin" serves as a synonym of the devil incarnate when in fact he is relatively moderate in comparison to some of the hawks in his circle 2ho probably would like Ukraine written off the map and at the very least Odessa and everything east of the Dnieper under Russia's domain.
If we survive, the United States-Russia Federation conflict in Ukraine may well become the basis of textbook studies of hyper-saturation propaganda in conjunction with the erosion of civil rights.
also - any insights about something tucker carlson recently said in an intv w/ alex jones: the biden admin assessed the risk of a nuclear exchange at 50% of the usa gave long range weapons (atakams) to ukriane?
it is widely reported that the administration was hesitant to provide such weaponry due to fears of escalation, but carlson was adamant that biden's dod through the risk of a nuke exchange was SIGNIFICANT.
finally, scott horton's book provoked is excellent on this topic (russia/ukraine war)
Well-researched and conceived. Difficult, though, to conclude, as you do merely in passing, that Russia's invasion was not unprovoked but was nevertheless unjustified. You don't justify this view. Nor do you recognise that not only a minority but a large chunk of Western Ukraine's population is not only "neo" but holds deeply ingrained nazi sympathies dating from WWII, during which their family members massively collaborated with Nazi Germany in its atrocities on the Eastern Front and for whom historic Ukronazi war criminals such as Stepan Bandera remain national idols. Despite this inconvenient but incontrovertible fact not only being widely known but characteristic of almost the entire Ukrainian diaspora in our own darling West.
A good article (Russia's intervention was literally not illegal, though), but it doesn't come anywhere close to even denting the surface of the lies that have been told regarding Ukraine. I mostly stopped tracking the lies in 2023, and only did a very casual job of it before then, so there are tons and tons that I haven't made notes of (even from just 2022 - 2023). But here are just some additional lies that have been told about Ukraine (some of these will likely be repeats of what the Dissident article says) - and I even have tons more noted down than these, across many text files, but they aren't very organised and for this I'm just copy-pasting some chunks of text without sifting through them for repeats, etc:
- Ukraine claimed that Russia had fired a missile into Poland, killing a couple of people, and so NATO had to enter the war. NATO didn't want to enter the war directly (though, it is as involved in it as possible without being fully directly in it), and so didn't support Ukraine's claim. It turned out that Ukraine fired that missile into Poland, killing two Poles, as a false-flag attempt to draw NATO into the war.
- Ukraine hyped-up a non-existent Ghost of Kiev, which they claimed to be racking-up a cartoonish number of battle victories. Even in the face of debunking, Ukraine doubled and tripled-down on absurd propaganda. Ultimately, Ukraine had to face reality, that few people still believed their claims, and so said the Ghost of Kiev represented the spirit of Ukraine. I guess they meant Ukraine's pathologically-lying and delusional spirit.
- Ukraine made up a story about Snake Island troops heroically defending the island to their deaths. In reality, they surrendered to Russia immediately, and they went on video cursing Zelensky for abandoning them, saying that Ukraine had all the time in the world to evacuate them, but that they were deliberately abandoned to serve as martyrs for Ukraine's war propaganda. Russia voluntarily returned them all safely to Ukraine.
- The West and Ukraine blamed a Tochka-U missile hitting a Kramatorsk railway station earlier on in Russia's intervention in Ukraine, and did a media blitz about it. But data of the missile's flight-path, and also its serial number, and pre-war Russian-army inventory ledgers proved the missile belonged to Ukraine. Western media simply abandoned the story after that and stopped reporting on it.
- On multiple occasions, Ukraine accused Russia of attacking apartment buildings in Kiev with missiles. Video showed one such hit was from a Ukrainian air defence missile, and another was caused by Ukrainian air defence downing a Russian missile that then fell onto an apartment building.
- The West and Ukraine repeatedly claimed that there isn't a huge Nazi problem in Ukraine, despite the overwhelming proof to the contrary - Nazis widely plague Ukraine's government, army, and society. Yet since then, even NATO's semi-official propaganda branch, Atlantic Council, and US CIA-controlled MSM like NYT admit that there is a big Nazi problem in Ukraine.
- That Maidan was a grassroots movement
- That the West didn't plan and orchestrate Maidan
- That the Maidan coup was instead a lawful change of government
- That Ukraine wasn't committing genocide from 2014 until Russia intervened
- That Ukraine's massive Nazi problem is Russian propaganda
- That Russia started the war
- That Russia's entrance into the war was unprovoked
- That Ukraine is a democracy and is fighting for Western values
- That Russia was running out of missiles every month since March 2022
- That Russia was running out of troops
- The casualty and equipment-destruction rates of both Ukraine and Russia
- That Ukraine ever stood a chance against Russia
- That Ukraine wasn't committing atrocities, rounding up and executing civilians who support Russia
- It's confirmed that a Ukrainian missile hit the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa, killing one person, but Western MSM are blanket-reporting it as a Russian strike. Remember that when reading anything from Western MSM.
- That Russian soldiers were committing mass rapes, including of children... then the Ukrainian Minister who was creating these claims admitted they were fake and she was making them up to build more support for Ukraine / demonization of Russia.
- That there was a heroic Ukrainian defence of Snake Island, when the troops there peacefully surrendered to Russia, who took care of them and returned them to Ukraine, where those same troops then lambasted Ukraine's govt, saying they had been supposed to evacuate them, and had all the time in the world to, but abandoned them to use them as martyrs for their war propaganda.
- That the Ghost of Kiev was real
- That Russia was behind the Bucha massacre (at least a significant number of murdered Bucha civilians were executed by Ukrainian troops for showing support for Russia, or even just accepting Russia's humanitarian aid)
- That Russia did the Kramatorsk train-station attack (proven to be a Ukrainian missile, fired from the direction of Ukraine's force)
- That a Russian missile attacked its own PoW camp in Yelenovka that was holding Ukrainian Nazis who agreed to testify of Ukrainian atrocities
- That Russia was shelling its own troops and its own nuclear power station in its own territory (then Kiev boasted about doing it)
- That Russia planned to blow the dam, after Russia first made the accusation of Kiev (then Kiev boasted that they had been planning to do it)
- That NATO didn't promise it wouldn't expand eastward towards Russia's border
- That NATO isn't involved in the war in Ukraine
- That Russia wasn't provoked to enter the Ukraine war, when the US commissioned research on how it could provoke Russia to enter the war, and then implemented every recommended measure of that report to get Russia to intervene in the war
- That Russia attacked an apartment building in Kiev with a missile (photo and video revealed it was Ukrainian air defence which struck it)
- That Russia targeted an certain apartment building in (Arestovych's claim that Ukraine's air defence caused it to be hit was supported by civilian video footage)
- That Russia undermined the grain deal and prevented Ukrainian grain from being exported, when the West lied about it and took Ukraine's grain for themselves
Once again. The Dissident excels in boldly dissecting the lies fostered by government and news media that endanger all of us.
Ukraine has lost the proxy war
Which were the lies, please?
Ukraine have lost the proxy war waged by USA in provocation of Russia - the SMO was entirely justified - by Article 51
I really don’t know why I started, but then I got sucked in . Have wasted too many valuable minutes on a lovely day.
By the words you use alone, it’s obvious you aren’t one to take serious. Another fool, hopelessly indoctrinated by MSM.
Normally I don’t, and if I do, I try and be polite. This turned out to be a mistake but there we are, it is Palm Sunday.
Just one will do.
I tried to translate. This but failed. perhaps you could provide an English version.
lol, that means you’re mad at being exposed.
great stuff
For further context on Russia's willingness to negotiate, even after the failure of Minsk 1 and 2, they proposed a European security treaty that was rejected by the US in December '21 which would have satisfied the principal requirements not to intervene in Ukraine.
This analysis of the prequel to the SMO by historian Prof. Geoffrey Roberts may be of interest
https://geoffreyroberts.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Now-or-Never-The-Immediate-Origins-of-Putins-Preventative-War-on-Ukraine.pdf
You’re full of lies.
@Coprophilic Wellness doesn’t seem to be adding anything very positive to the discussion.
First, per the Dissident, you can NEVER go wrong reading Ivan Katchanovski. I've followed him on Shitter for years.
Second, I thought Trump was going to solve this war by now? In reality, as the Dissident has hinted at in a couple of previous posts, Trump's "transactionalism" applies as much to Russia-Ukraine peace talks as to anything else. And Putin, like Xi on tariffs, isn't buying in — because he doesn't have to.
Trump hasn't solved this war in 90 days, let alone his first week. We've seen the same is true on tariffs. And the same will surely remain true on both after Trump's 90-day "pause" on many of his tariffs is done (if it lasts that long).
What makes the Russian operation in Ukraine illegal, article of the UN charter? As if it is illegal there must be a legal argument. Yet the ICC did not charge the Russian president for conducting an illegal war but for evacuating children from a warzone. If the Russian SMO was unjustified what options were available to Russia that they had not already exhausted?
It wasn't illegal. Russia's intervention was done under Article 51 of the UN charter, which grants the right to collective self-defence. Ahead of Russia's intervention, Russia officially recognised the independences of Donetsk and Lugansk (which was entirely a right of Russia to do), and then signed mutual defence pacts with them. Then Ukraine massively ramped-up its shelling of those regions, a bit over a week before Russia's intervention, triggering the mutual defence pacts under which Russia entered the war.
Additionally, it's an international principle that states may not enhance their security at the expense of other states. It's also been argued, including by the US (such as regarding Iraq - but the US lied about a threat in that case), that international law also grants a pre-emptive act of self-defence in the case where there is a clear, looming threat of aggression. The danger of Ukraine joining NATO, a hyper-aggressive, anti-Russia military alliance that has invaded and destroyed country after country, and murdered millions of people in illegal wars of aggression based on lies, would be the gravest violation of the principle of indivisible security, and constitute a case of a clear, looming threat to Russia.
The Dissident's article is mistaken in claiming that Russia's intervention was illegal. The West calls it illegal just because they don't like it. But while people and countries can have their own opinions on the justification for Russia's intervention, it was done lawfully, per international law and the UN charter.
The issue is the whole western strategy is based on emotions that depend on morality and not law to justify arguments. The problem is the world is dominated by ignorance so most people make the mistake of "feeling" rather than taking into account actual legal, logical and reasonable information. The conflict has demonstrated that feelings do not dictate reality and the conflict in the middle east emphasized the hypocrisy that has always existed in the imperialistic colonial Western mindset.
Not just emotions but caricature where "Putin" serves as a synonym of the devil incarnate when in fact he is relatively moderate in comparison to some of the hawks in his circle 2ho probably would like Ukraine written off the map and at the very least Odessa and everything east of the Dnieper under Russia's domain.
If we survive, the United States-Russia Federation conflict in Ukraine may well become the basis of textbook studies of hyper-saturation propaganda in conjunction with the erosion of civil rights.
You didn’t go far enough
great insights, great article.
also - any insights about something tucker carlson recently said in an intv w/ alex jones: the biden admin assessed the risk of a nuclear exchange at 50% of the usa gave long range weapons (atakams) to ukriane?
it is widely reported that the administration was hesitant to provide such weaponry due to fears of escalation, but carlson was adamant that biden's dod through the risk of a nuke exchange was SIGNIFICANT.
finally, scott horton's book provoked is excellent on this topic (russia/ukraine war)
Yes, please.
"Insights" into that sloppy 69 that Tucker the Toadie and InfoWars Clown Alex inflicted on one another.
We need to learn!
Cry some more.
You forgot to include the historical ethnic grievances against Russia that most of Biden’s cabinet held.
Well-researched and conceived. Difficult, though, to conclude, as you do merely in passing, that Russia's invasion was not unprovoked but was nevertheless unjustified. You don't justify this view. Nor do you recognise that not only a minority but a large chunk of Western Ukraine's population is not only "neo" but holds deeply ingrained nazi sympathies dating from WWII, during which their family members massively collaborated with Nazi Germany in its atrocities on the Eastern Front and for whom historic Ukronazi war criminals such as Stepan Bandera remain national idols. Despite this inconvenient but incontrovertible fact not only being widely known but characteristic of almost the entire Ukrainian diaspora in our own darling West.
Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Zahar:
"The entire planet will be under our law; there will be no more Jews or Christian traitors."
Tell me again, how this is just about land?
Biden sent them money
Bernie Sanders wants a arms embargo yet they know what Hamas says
A good article (Russia's intervention was literally not illegal, though), but it doesn't come anywhere close to even denting the surface of the lies that have been told regarding Ukraine. I mostly stopped tracking the lies in 2023, and only did a very casual job of it before then, so there are tons and tons that I haven't made notes of (even from just 2022 - 2023). But here are just some additional lies that have been told about Ukraine (some of these will likely be repeats of what the Dissident article says) - and I even have tons more noted down than these, across many text files, but they aren't very organised and for this I'm just copy-pasting some chunks of text without sifting through them for repeats, etc:
- Ukraine claimed that Russia had fired a missile into Poland, killing a couple of people, and so NATO had to enter the war. NATO didn't want to enter the war directly (though, it is as involved in it as possible without being fully directly in it), and so didn't support Ukraine's claim. It turned out that Ukraine fired that missile into Poland, killing two Poles, as a false-flag attempt to draw NATO into the war.
- Ukraine hyped-up a non-existent Ghost of Kiev, which they claimed to be racking-up a cartoonish number of battle victories. Even in the face of debunking, Ukraine doubled and tripled-down on absurd propaganda. Ultimately, Ukraine had to face reality, that few people still believed their claims, and so said the Ghost of Kiev represented the spirit of Ukraine. I guess they meant Ukraine's pathologically-lying and delusional spirit.
- Ukraine made up a story about Snake Island troops heroically defending the island to their deaths. In reality, they surrendered to Russia immediately, and they went on video cursing Zelensky for abandoning them, saying that Ukraine had all the time in the world to evacuate them, but that they were deliberately abandoned to serve as martyrs for Ukraine's war propaganda. Russia voluntarily returned them all safely to Ukraine.
- The West and Ukraine blamed a Tochka-U missile hitting a Kramatorsk railway station earlier on in Russia's intervention in Ukraine, and did a media blitz about it. But data of the missile's flight-path, and also its serial number, and pre-war Russian-army inventory ledgers proved the missile belonged to Ukraine. Western media simply abandoned the story after that and stopped reporting on it.
- On multiple occasions, Ukraine accused Russia of attacking apartment buildings in Kiev with missiles. Video showed one such hit was from a Ukrainian air defence missile, and another was caused by Ukrainian air defence downing a Russian missile that then fell onto an apartment building.
- The West and Ukraine repeatedly claimed that there isn't a huge Nazi problem in Ukraine, despite the overwhelming proof to the contrary - Nazis widely plague Ukraine's government, army, and society. Yet since then, even NATO's semi-official propaganda branch, Atlantic Council, and US CIA-controlled MSM like NYT admit that there is a big Nazi problem in Ukraine.
- That Maidan was a grassroots movement
- That the West didn't plan and orchestrate Maidan
- That the Maidan coup was instead a lawful change of government
- That Ukraine wasn't committing genocide from 2014 until Russia intervened
- That Ukraine's massive Nazi problem is Russian propaganda
- That Russia started the war
- That Russia's entrance into the war was unprovoked
- That Ukraine is a democracy and is fighting for Western values
- That Russia was running out of missiles every month since March 2022
- That Russia was running out of troops
- The casualty and equipment-destruction rates of both Ukraine and Russia
- That Ukraine ever stood a chance against Russia
- That Ukraine wasn't committing atrocities, rounding up and executing civilians who support Russia
- It's confirmed that a Ukrainian missile hit the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa, killing one person, but Western MSM are blanket-reporting it as a Russian strike. Remember that when reading anything from Western MSM.
- That Russian soldiers were committing mass rapes, including of children... then the Ukrainian Minister who was creating these claims admitted they were fake and she was making them up to build more support for Ukraine / demonization of Russia.
- That there was a heroic Ukrainian defence of Snake Island, when the troops there peacefully surrendered to Russia, who took care of them and returned them to Ukraine, where those same troops then lambasted Ukraine's govt, saying they had been supposed to evacuate them, and had all the time in the world to, but abandoned them to use them as martyrs for their war propaganda.
- That the Ghost of Kiev was real
- That Russia was behind the Bucha massacre (at least a significant number of murdered Bucha civilians were executed by Ukrainian troops for showing support for Russia, or even just accepting Russia's humanitarian aid)
- That Russia did the Kramatorsk train-station attack (proven to be a Ukrainian missile, fired from the direction of Ukraine's force)
- That a Russian missile attacked its own PoW camp in Yelenovka that was holding Ukrainian Nazis who agreed to testify of Ukrainian atrocities
- That Russia was shelling its own troops and its own nuclear power station in its own territory (then Kiev boasted about doing it)
- That Russia planned to blow the dam, after Russia first made the accusation of Kiev (then Kiev boasted that they had been planning to do it)
- That NATO didn't promise it wouldn't expand eastward towards Russia's border
- That NATO isn't involved in the war in Ukraine
- That Russia wasn't provoked to enter the Ukraine war, when the US commissioned research on how it could provoke Russia to enter the war, and then implemented every recommended measure of that report to get Russia to intervene in the war
- That Russia attacked an apartment building in Kiev with a missile (photo and video revealed it was Ukrainian air defence which struck it)
- That Russia targeted an certain apartment building in (Arestovych's claim that Ukraine's air defence caused it to be hit was supported by civilian video footage)
- That Russia undermined the grain deal and prevented Ukrainian grain from being exported, when the West lied about it and took Ukraine's grain for themselves